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Re: Upper midwest beeks???

I have never had to feed in the spring, dandelion bloom was strong this year. The main flow seems to have started, and bees are working like they should. FYI, I am located 30 miles east of Minneapolis.

Re: Upper midwest beeks???

I am on the prairie in Montana and after fruit bloom and dandelions ended, the bees brought in nothing for quite a while. A friend of mine had some starve before he figured out how light bees were. I have been feeding most but I see the alfalfa finally starting to break here so I think I made it.

Re: Upper midwest beeks???

We have had a few rare hives produce two deeps already. Agreed, spotty results. We will fire up the extracting room tomorrow, very early, in the 60's(I was a kid in the extracting room) July 4th was the norm.

Re: Upper midwest beeks???

Not much going on here. A couple hives have a super of honey, but all the empties still sit empty. Unless we get some rain, I don't think there will be much of anything this year. Most of mine are coming off of splits and they're struggling to work the third medium in the brood nest.

Re: Upper midwest beeks???

Its ben dry and windy this spring in eastern montana and all of my hives have been feed 5 gallons of syrup since they hit the ground in early May. The last 1100 gallons went out 6/21. But the bees are very strong with good stores awaiting the honey flow. So even though its more then i've ever feed in the spring i can't complain.

Re: Upper midwest beeks???

I finished feeding packages last week. The overwintered colonies have had honey supers on for a few weeks. They are just now starting to use them. I've got a few yards on alfalfa and am really happy that the land owners have held off on their first cutting.

Re: Upper midwest beeks???

This is one of those white clover years in central Ky. Without hot and dry conditionswe could have had a flow thru July. Really getting dry and burning up the clover. Bees still have a shake and storing a little but has slowed down alot, I expect this weekends 95 plus temp to end it. looks like a 125 lb average on overwintered with some at 200. Splits make after almonds 1 to 3 med supers. A good crop but this was the yea to have a bumper crop if we ever get "normal" weather. Hoping to have extracting room finished and bigger system up and running first week of July and then we will see. Bees may eat alot of it as forecast is for 95 to 100 and no rain for next two weeks. Was hoping to stay in KY until dec 1...looks like that may change!

Re: Upper midwest beeks???

im located in se Minnesota. My winter colonies needed no feed. Been bringing in fairly steady flow of honey. Starter/nucs that I got early may I had to feed till 2weeks ago. Their strength to build up took longer than usually. They are bringing the gold now. If we get rain every 7 to 10days it will keep up.

Re: Upper midwest beeks???

We are 2 1/2 hours NW of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

Our overwintered colonies get no feed.

The packages we installed around the first of May were provided with a gallon of 1:1 syrup. Most of them hardly touched it- which is unusual. Some took as long as 2 weeks to finish the gallon. I never gave them any more.

Right now we are having the best basswood flow we have ever had. No rain, flowers are full of nectar, and the bees are working from 6am to 9:30pm. All of the packages have filled or almost filled the third medium/second deep and some have started filling supers.

Overwintered colonies were split 3 ways with purchased queens and we are still going to get some surplus from most of them.

Today was Day 9 of the basswood flow. Very pleased with how things are progressing.

Re: Upper midwest beeks???

The main flow is starting and some yards have 3-4 supers filled and other just coming through the excluder. If we get an inch. of rain in the next month we should do a 150 lb avg. Extracted 179 supers yesterday to try new extracting setup. It looks like the honey is coming in 2-3 weeks early this year. Just hope the flow last longer this year.

Re: Upper midwest beeks???

Since the last report of 6-22-2012, both the scale hive at home, and 25 miles west at the shop, had been gaining 3lbs a day, untill today. The home scale hive did very little in the middle of the day, and only gained 1 1/2 lbs. It has been over 100 Deg F. the last two days, so I guess we should be happy they went up. Everything is dried up like late August. I have NO idea what they are finding at home in a suburb. At the shop, the alfalfa is blooming, so that is understandable.

Re: Upper midwest beeks???

Here in west central Montana, the bees are bringing in a little honey but most of the crp alfalfa my bees are on has brown scars where the buds were a week ago. The only plants blooming are in low spots or on patches of better soil. East Montana is burned up and brown. If we don't get rain, it is going to get pretty grim here. I was still feeding a couple yards two weeks ago. But on the brght side, I am still waiting for May queens from a Mississippi address.